Showing posts with label Visual Mode. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Visual Mode. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Vim - Visual Mode

When learning Vim, it's important to understand its modes, particularly the Visual Mode where you can visually select portions of your content.
Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

Once you installed Vim, learned the basics of Vim Modes and understood Normal mode, it's time to learn yet another Vim mode: Visual Mode. This is the mode where you insert/modify text.

On this tutorial we will understand more about it and how to use it effectively.

Visual Mode 101

The Visual mode will probably be familiar to you. It's the mode in which Vim highlights the selected text so you can run operations on it. It's equivalent to how you select text in other text editors using the mouse or the keyboard. 

Vim allows any operation on visual blocks including copying, deleting, replacing, changing case, etc. 

Visually selecting a portion of text is not necessary to perform the above operations as we'll see in future blog posts.

Visual Mode types

There are three visual modes in Vim:

  • Visual Mode per character (v) - sets a starting selection point and keep altering the selection while you move the cursor
  • Visual Mode linewise (V) - selects line by line
  • Blockwise Visual mode (Ctrl+V) - allows vertical selections

Once the visual mode is started with one of the options above, move the cursor to the desired end selection point. You will see the text selection being highlighted. Let's see them in action.

Visual Mode per character

Start the visual mode with character with v then move your cursor around to keep expanding your selection. For example, if from the start of the file you typed v4w, you would have:

Visual selection after pressing v4w from the top of the file

Where:

  • v - enters visual mode per character
  • 4w - moves 4 words ahead

Visual Mode linewise

The difference between the visual mode linewise and the previous one is that this selects line by line (but is not limited to only lines). Start the visual mode linewise with V then move your cursor around to keep expanding your selection. For example, if with my cursor located on the top of the file I pressed V2}, I'd have:

Visual selection after pressing V2} from the top of the file
Where:

  • V - enters visual mode linewise
  • 2} - 2 paragraphs forward

Blockwise Visual Mode

The Blockwise visual mode allows us to perform vertical selections. For example, if you pressed Ctrl+V4j$ from the quae word, you'd have:


Where:

  • Ctrl+V - enters blockwise visual mode
  • 4j - moves 4 lines down
  • $ - moves to the end of the line

Selecting with search

Another interesting thing we could with any of the previous modes is select up to a certain point using the built-in search (/). For example, if I typed v/libe from the quae word, I'd have:
Altering the selection with search

Fine-tuning the selection

If for some reason the selection is not where you need, you can still change your selection. Press <Enter> and move the selection using any of the motions (hjklw}($, etc). You can also move the cursor to the other end of the selection with:
  • o - go to the other end of the highlighted text
  • O - similar to o but in visual block mode, moves to the other corner in the same line

Performing Operations

With the selection made, press <Enter> to set it so you can run interesting commands like:

  • y - to yank (copy) the text
  • ~ - change case of the selection
  • d - delete the selection
  • U - to uppercase
  • u - to lowercase
  • gg - format lines
  • J - to join all lines
  • : - to run any command on the selection
  • r - to replace any character in the selection by another
  • > - to indent the selection
  • < to un-indent the selection

Getting to Normal Mode

To get back to Normal mode from Visual mode (or one of Vim's other modes), press <Esc> or <Ctrl-C> or <Ctrl-[>.

Learning More

Ready to learn more about the Visual mode? Open its dedicated manual with:

:h visual-mode

Mode-specific help

If you want to know more about specific keys, Vim also has an intelligent mechanism to get you to the help quickly. It follows this pattern:

What Prepend Example
Normal mode command :help x
Visual mode command v_ :help v_u
Insert mode command i_ :help i_<Esc>
Command-line command : :help :quit
Command-line editing c_ :help c_<del>
Vim command argument - :help -r
Option ' :help 'textwidth'
Regular expression / :help /[

We hope you get used to the above syntax and use it regularly in you your Vim journey. It will not only help you learn more about Vim but also to memorize the commands better.

Conclusion

On this post we continued in our Vim journey by learning a bit more about Vim's Visual mode. If it seems complicated, don't be concerned. It takes years to master Vim but be sure that the more you learn, the more you realize that time is that secret ingredient in getting comfortable, becoming proficient and efficient with Vim.

Learning Vim is like learning a musical instrument. It takes time, effort and discipline but once you master it, the gains are endless. You definitely won't regret.

See Also

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Switching Modes in Vim

Learn how to swtich modes in Vim.
Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

On a previous post we learned about three of the most important foundational concepts of Vim: Commands, Buffers, Modes and Motions. We also recently reviewed how to install Vim on Macs, Windows or Linux, learned how to get started with Vim and mastered your first Vim tutorial, let's review tips and tricks to keep learning Vim. 

Today we will continue discussing Modes, specifically talking about a common operation in Vim: how to switch modes. But before we continue, let's review what are modes in Vim and which they are.

Modes in Vim

Modes are another feature that differentiates Vim from traditional text editors and something that's important to comprehend. Modes are 

The most common modes are:

  • Normal: Vim's primary mode and the one we use to run commands:
  • Insert: the mode where you edit the contents of your files
  • Visual: visual selection of contents
  • Replace: allows you to type over the text, replacing it
  • Command-line: allows you to execute commands via its own command-line prompt
  • Visual-block: allows you to make block-level changes (vertical selections and modifications)
  • Ex: in this mode Vim emulates the Ex editor and is used mainly for batch processing
  • Select: like the visual mode but with more CUA like behavior.

How to switch Modes in Vim

But understanding Modes is just the first part. Next, you have to understand how to switch between modes. The traditional workflow is to press <Esc> to go back to normal mode then press a keystroke to enter the other mode. Some of the keystrokes you can use to switch between modes are:

  • <Esc> - goes back to normal mode
  • i - enters insert mode (but other keystrokes exist)
  • : - enters command mode (but other keystrokes exist)
  • v - enters visual mode
  • V - enters visual mode (line selection)
  • R - enters command-line mode
  • <Ctrl-v>: enters visual block mode

Switching Modes in Action

So let's see some real use cases. In Vim, open an existing file with :e <filename> and follow the next steps.

Inserting Text in Insert Mode

For every opened file, the default mode is Normal mode. To type modifications in our file, we should either switch to Normal or Replace, Normal being by far the most common one. Some important keywords worth memorizing when switching from Normal to Insert mode are:

  • i - to insert in the current position
  • a - to insert after the next char
  • C - to change from the next char (delete all until the end of the line)
  • S - to substitute the current line (delete the whole line)

Back to Normal Mode

Next, get back to Normal Mode by pressing <Esc>, find the text hello by searching with /hello in normal mode and hit enter to set the cursor in that position.

Replacing text in Replace Mode

In case you want to type over the text, replacing it, press R to enter replace mode, enter your changes and <Esc> again to go back to normal mode.

Back to Normal Mode

Guess how should we get back to Normal Mode? You got it! By pressing <Esc>

Replacing Text using Command Mode

But we could have replaced hello by world using command mode. For example, the command below would run in command mode and would replace all occurrences of the word hello by world in the current buffer:

:%s/hello/world/g

Saving our file

Next, to save our file from Command Mode by typing :w

Quitting

And quit with :q

In which mode am I?

And how do we know in which mode we are? Assuming you're not running any plugins, Vim should show you that in the bottom of the screen:

  • Normal Mode: blank (no info)
  • Insert Mode: -- INSERT --
  • Replace Mode: -- REPLACE --
  • Visual: -- VISUAL LINE --
  • and so on
For example, in insert mode you should see something like:

If that info is not available, try resetting the showmode config with:

:set showmode

Fore more info about that configuration, type:

:h showmode

Conclusion

On this post we reviewed how to switch modes in Vim. We hope that these examples helped you understand better how these modes work in conjunction. We recommend you playing with the modes and getting comfortable with them since they're an essential part of learning and mastering Vim.

See Also

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Vim Modes - All you need to know to get started

When learning Vim, it's important to understand well its Modes, one of Vim's most fundamental concepts.
Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

On a previous post we learned about three of the most important foundational concepts of Vim: Commands, Buffers, Modes and Motions. We also recently reviewed how to install Vim on Macs, Windows or Linux, learned how to get started with Vim and mastered your first Vim tutorial. 

Today we will continue our discussion on modes: what they are, what they serve and how to use them.

What are modes in Vim?

Modes are another feature that differentiates Vim from traditional text editors and something that's important to comprehend. Modes are essentially different ways (or modes) Vim can work on. To master (and learn well) Vim it's important to understand not only which they are but how they differ and how they can you help you get your work done.

The most common Modes

Vim has seven basic modes The most common modes are:

  • Normal: Vim's primary mode and the one we use to run commands:
  • Insert: the mode where you edit the contents of your files
  • Visual: visual selection of contents
  • Replace: allows you to type over the text, replacing it
  • Command-line: allows you to execute commands via its own command-line prompt
  • Terminal-Job: allows you to interact with a job in a terminal window
  • Ex: in this mode Vim emulates the Ex editor and is used mainly for batch processing
  • Select: like the visual mode but with more CUA like behavior.

Using the Modes

So let's see some examples in how can you use these modes.

Normal Mode

In normal mode you're not supposed to type text but to send commands to Vim. Some of them are:

  • h - move one character left
  • j - move one line down
  • k - move one line up
  • l - move one character right
  • 0 - move to the beginning of the line
  • $ - move to the end of the line 
  • w move to beginning of next word
  • b move to previous beginning of word
  • gg - move to the beginning of the document
  • G - move to the end of the document
  • u - undo previous change
  • Ctrl-r: redo previous change
  • : - go to ex mode (where you can type commands, for example to quit Vim, save or open a file)
  • ma - creates a mark a
  • `a - moves the cursor to mark a
  • and more, much more
Don't worry, we'll study normal modes in the future

Visual Mode

Press v in normal mode to enter visual mode, then move the arrow with h/j/k/l or with other commands (see above for examples). After you're comfortable with the selection, you can either type y to yank (copy) the text, x to delete it of any other command available in that mode.

We'll study more about the normal mode in the future.

Command Mode

It's also possible to run commands in Vim. That mode is called Command mode (or command-line mote) and to get to it type : while in normal mode. For example, the command below would run in command mode and would replace all occurrences of the word hello by world in the current buffer:

:%s/hello/world/g

Visual Mode

To use the visual mode (similar to the select feature in your text editor can be accomplished by pressing the following keys in normal mode:

  • v - start visual mode from the current character
  • V - start visual mode with line selection

Switching between modes

The last thing is how to switch between modes. The traditional workflow is to press <Esc> to go back to normal mode then press a keystroke to enter the other mode. Some of the keystrokes you can use to switch between modes are:

  • <Esc> - goes back to normal mode
  • i - enters insert mode
  • : - enters command mode
  • v - enters visual mode
  • R - enters command-line mode
  • V - enters visual mode (line selection)
  • <Ctrl-v>: enters visual block mode

In which mode am I?

And how do we know in which mode we are? Assuming you're not running any plugins, Vim should show you that in the bottom of the screen:

  • Normal Mode: blank (no info)
  • Insert Mode: -- INSERT --
  • Replace Mode: -- REPLACE --
  • Visual: -- VISUAL LINE --
  • and so on
For example, in insert mode you should see something like:

If that info is not available, try resetting the showmode config with:

:set showmode

Fore more info about that configuration, type:

:h showmode

Mode-specific help

Vim also has an intelligent mechanism to get you to the help quickly. It follows this pattern:

What Prepend Example
Normal mode command :help x
Visual mode command v_ :help v_u
Insert mode command i_ :help i_<Esc>
Command-line command : :help :quit
Command-line editing c_ :help c_<Del>
Vim command argument - :help -r
Option ' :help 'textwidth'
Regular expression / :help /[

We hope you get used to the above syntax and use it regularly in you your Vim journey. It will not only help you learn more about Vim but also to memorize the commands better.

Conclusion

On this post we learned the most important modes, what they are, what they serve and how to use them.

If it seems complicated, don't be concerned. It takes years to master Vim but be sure that the more you learn, the more you realize that time is that secret ingredient in getting comfortable, becoming proficient and efficient with Vim. Learning Vim is like learning a musical instrument. It takes time, effort and discipline but once you master it, the gains are endless. You definitely won't regret.

See Also

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Fundamental concepts of Vim

When learning Vim, it's important to understand its most fundamental concepts: Commands, Buffers, Modes and Motions.
Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

Once you installed Vim on Mac, Windows or Linux, learned how to get started with Vim and mastered your first Vim tutorial, the next thing you should learn about Vim is its fundamental concepts: Commands, Buffers, Modes and Motions.

Commands

Most of the examples you'll see and learn are commands. Commands are operations you run in Vim that can pretty much do everything. For example, the command below, lists the open files:

:ls

Commands can also modify text. For example, the command below would replace all occurrences of the word hello by world in the current buffer:

:%s/hello/world/g

Buffers

Buffers are another essential concept of Vim. You may not have realized it yet but buffers is one of the things in Vim that differs it from traditional text editors.

Every file opened in Vim is opened in a buffer. During that process, Vim copies the contents of that file to memory and uses that until you save your modifications to disk. That way Vim can perform really quick operations on the content you need without reaching the filesystem.

Modes

Modes are another feature that differentiates Vim from traditional text editors and something that's important to comprehend. The most common modes are:

  • Normal: Vim's primary mode and the one we use to run commands:
  • Insert: the mode where you edit the contents of your files
  • Visual: visual selection of contents
  • Replace: allows you to type over the text, replacing it
  • Command-line: allows you to execute commands via its own command-line prompt
  • Visual-block: allows you to make block-level changes (vertical selections and modifications)
  • Ex: in this mode Vim emulates the Ex editor and is used mainly for batch processing
  • Select: like the visual mode but with more CUA like behavior.

Since there's a lot there to learn, try to stick with Normal and Insert for now. We'll see in detail in future posts how each of the mode works but feel free to use the help as explained on a previous post.

Motions

Another fundamental aspect of Vim is the concept of Motions. Motions are parameters that you pass into your commands or actions moving the cursor around (fore or backwards). Motions is another phenomenal feature of Vim's making it way more powerful than  traditional editors. 

Motions can also be combined with operators (we'll learn more about them in the future) so you can run powerful commands like:

dap

which runs a command that can be read as "delete all paragraph".

Conclusion

On this post we introduced three of the fundamental concepts of Vim: Commands, Buffers, Modes and Motions. If it seems complicated, don't be concerned. It takes years to master Vim but be sure that the more you learn, the more you realize that time is that secret ingredient in getting comfortable, becoming proficient and efficient with Vim.

Learning Vim is like learning a musical instrument. It takes time, effort and discipline but once you master it, the gains are endless. You definitely won't regret.

See Also

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